Here’s a recommendation I never thought I’d issue as a film critic: Consider watching just the first half of the overachievement-gone-awry biopic “Molly’s Game.” The initial hour of Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut is fizzy, smart, exhilarating fun; it would’ve made a fantastically promising TV pilot.

“Molly’s Game” opens with a sensational skiing segment, at the bone-crunching end of which tiger-fathered Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), then an Olympic hopeful, has to become the best at something not sports-related. Putting off law school, Molly stumbles into the poker underworld, where, for a little while at least, she becomes the biggest game runner in the world.

Written by Sorkin, this adaptation of Bloom’s memoir is loquacious in the extreme, with the fictionalized Molly explaining something about poker, the law, her life, and the FBI’s case against her via voiceover in practically every scene. For a long while — much longer than I would have thought — I didn’t mind.

Chastain brings an intoxicating swagger and a poignant injuredness to her poker-hostess-turned-eventual-felon as a woman who knows she could succeed at anything, and decides to enter the male-only caves where powerful millionaires win or lose the equivalent of an upper-middle-class annual income in a single night. Molly’s ascent is canny and swift. Her downfalls (she suffers several) are sudden and inevitable.

It’s not just that underdog stories — in this case, of a female poker organizer — tend to be more exciting than the hangovers thereafter. In its first half, “Molly’s Game” immerses its viewers in both the rush of the bet and the thrill of how power works in a boys’ club. (Expect jargon like “calling on the flop” and “bombing the river.”)

She quickly absorbs everything she needs to know from an abusive boss (Jeremy Strong) and sets up shop for herself, learning along the way how to look the part of a woman who can command a $10,000 admission fee to her poker nights. The costuming and makeup tell stories of their own, as Molly morphs from a JCPenney shopper to a “Cinemax version of herself.”

But Molly doesn’t quite grasp the precariousness of her position by dint of her gender until it’s too late. And when she thinks she’s finally grasped how sexism can knock her down, she’s forced to learn the same lesson even more ruefully the next time.

If anyone ever needed a (platonic) girlfriend, it’s Molly. In this telling, at least, the game runner is lonely and often on the verge of depression, driven by a need to succeed — not just admirably, but wildly and wondrously. Always, she is surrounded by men. In the present, her lawyer (Idris Elba in an utterly thankless role) slowly realizes how nobly principled she is despite her chosen profession of encouraging gambling addiction, a requirement of the job she regrets.

In flashbacks and during her legal troubles, her hard-nosed father (Kevin Costner) offers some tough love. Her celebrity draw in LA, a poker luminary rumored to be based on Tobey Maguire (played by a surprisingly sexy Michael Cera), eventually reveals his predatory ruthlessness. Another client (a hilarious Chris O’Dowd), an unreliable drunk in New York with a penchant for Dadaist mumblings, inadvertently robs Molly of her extraordinary good luck.

It’s clear from the first few minutes of the film that Molly has the potential to climb to the top of any mountain she chose, so why did she pick poker? The desperately flawed second half of “Molly’s Game” searches for an answer, and the explanation, elaborated in a pivotal scene between Molly and her father, is so crude, simplistic, and tone-deaf that it threatens to torpedo the picture.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. It’s an atrocious scene that demeaningly recasts Molly’s accomplishments as a juvenile rebellion, with Costner’s psychologist father shrinksplaining to his daughter why she is the way she is despite her protestations otherwise. (Of course, we’re supposed to trust that it’s the dad, not Molly herself, who’s right about what drives her.) Viewers of the Sorkin-penned “Steve Jobs” might recall that that biopic, too, hinged on some piffling psychoanalysis to patch things up between an estranged father and daughter.

The second, fatal blow — the Fat Man to the above scene’s Little Boy — comes courtesy of the absolutely ludicrous final courtroom scene, in which pompous self-righteousness carries the day. It’s too bad that Chastain’s heady, exquisitely subtle performance is dragged down by the laughably vehement male characters that seek to speak for her.

You can’t keep a good woman down. But you can constantly talk over her, I guess.

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All 8 Aaron Sorkin Movies Ranked From Worst to Best (Photos)

Aaron Sorkin was probably born in the wrong era. His characters operate under an impossibly witty and clever language, engaging in exchanges only experienced in the movies of Howard Hawks or Frank Capra. With the upcoming release of "Molly’s Game," Sorkin’s directorial debut, we ranked every film the man has penned over the last three decades.

8. “Malice” (1993)

Sorkin’s shoddiest screenplay is also his most dated. Nicole Kidman plays a happily married woman who wants to start a family. She finds herself under the care of Jed (Alec Baldwin), who's some kind of malevolent figure in Sorkin's clumsy script. “You ask me if I have a God complex?” asks Baldwin, before continuing. “Let me tell you something: I am God.” Yikes.

7. “Molly’s Game” (2017)

Sorkin is a writer first and everything else second. That includes the role of director. Sorkin’s prose sings under the direction of David Fincher or Mike Nichols, assured talents whose visions are inimitable. Here Sorkin -- adapting Molly Bloom’s book -- has difficulty pulling off double-duty. The language is still sharp and cutting, but the bite isn’t there. Surprisingly, Molly packs little punch.

6. “Steve Jobs” (2015)

This unorthodox imagining of Steve Jobs’ life should work better than it does. Under director Danny Boyle, there are moments of power. The heated exchanges between Michael Fassbender and Seth Rogen; the even more heated exchanges between Fassbender and Jeff Daniels. Sorkin does anger perfectly. Fragmenting Jobs’ varied career into a triptych structure ends up undoing some of its narrative impact.

5. “A Few Good Men” (1992)

Movies like “A Few Good Men” with monumentally popular lines of dialogue become mythologized. We gravitate to what we can easily recall, like the goodbye in “Casablanca” or Marlon Brandon’s tragic lamenting in “On the Waterfront." Moving past Jack Nicholson’s "You can’t handle the truth” throw-down, Rob Reiner's courtroom drama is more subtle than we remember. It derives strength from its performances (namely Tom Cruise and Demi Moore), who use Sorkin’s words to great effect.

4. “Charlie Wilson’s War” (2007)

This one is just fun. Re-watching director Mike Nichols’ biopic of the Texas congressmen (Tom Hanks), it’s clear Sorkin’s work plays better if it's, well, playful. The less serious the project takes itself, the stronger it ends up being. “Charlie Wilson” shines when it narrows its focus on the complex (sometimes romantic) dynamic between Hanks and Julia Roberts. Sorkin seems interested in exploring relationships that oscillate from person to professional. The lines are blurred, and that’s when characters become interesting.

3. “Moneyball” (2011)

Sorkin is best when adapting events that (on the page) don’t appear inherently cinematic. “Moneyball” is a film about number-crunching statisticians obsessed with a calculable solution to sport. Like most of Sorkin’s work, it benefits from two factors: Bennett Miller direction and star Brad Pitt. Oh, and then there’s Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill. Michael Lewis’ book may have discovered the story of the Oakland A’s, but it’s Sorkin who unearths the heart.

2. “The American President” (1995)

Pure joy. “The American President” is not based on a true story. It’s not adapting an acclaimed New York Times best-seller. Sorkin’s script is simply an amalgamation of his desires: politics, sex, and power (note: not always in that order). Starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening, every frame feels like an anomaly today -- and it’s not just because of Douglas’ irresistibly charming Commander-in-Chief. It’s a drama that’s not Oscar-bait (although it did receive one nomination for original score) or contrived, with no intentions of spinoffs or sequels. It’s about two people abating loneliness through love, and how that is made a bit more challenging when one person is running the free world.

1. "The Social Network" (2010)

Sorkin’s filmic output can’t compare to his work on television. But “The Social Network” is Sorkin’s crowning achievement. The actors -- especially Jesse Eisenberg as infamous Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg -- understand Sorkin’s intent. They lean into the nastiness when the script asks for it, and replicate the epigrammatic wit that Sorkin has been chasing since the early '90s. Neither effusive nor dry, the film is unafraid of vulnerability. Egotism gone awry, youthful creativity turned into commerce, friendship jettisoned for, well, greener pastures. It’s a true masterpiece.

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How does his directorial debut, “Molly’s Game,” stack up against classics like “A Few Good Men” and “The Social Network”?

Aaron Sorkin was probably born in the wrong era. His characters operate under an impossibly witty and clever language, engaging in exchanges only experienced in the movies of Howard Hawks or Frank Capra. With the upcoming release of "Molly’s Game," Sorkin’s directorial debut, we ranked every film the man has penned over the last three decades.

Inkoo Kang is the News Editor of Indiewire’s Women and Hollywood blog and a frequent contributor to The Village Voice and the Los Angeles Times. She has also written about film and television for The Atlantic, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, and Vulture. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of “All About Eve” with an all-dog cast.